In my case, I don't feel it's the Internet in general. I think it's Facebook that puts me in a funk. Oh, and I steer away from Reddit, if not feeling great. That said, I think I'm a lot older than most you you guys. I'll honesty give the reasons why I find FB depressing:

I don't have a lot of friends. I find people so self-aware on FB, I don't find them interesting. People, I used to find interesting, edgy, true individuals seemed to turn into just boring, conformists. Nothing wrong with boring, and conformity? I think it just all reminds me of my own mortality?

I also learned--I'm not the person I thought I was when on FB. Meaning--I'm more critical when I'm on that site, than in real life. Example--I go to someone's site I used to know, and see the physical age in their pictures, and it's just depressing. I see how some have given into being their parents, and it's just depressing. I see the see the car I was suspose to inherit being trashed by my nephew, I get depressed on a lot of levels. I also see that people aren't breaking down my doors looking for me--as a friend, I get depressed. I look at the news feed, and what FB thinks I'm interested in, I get depressed. I see that that the one person I thought would not have over 1000 friends, is actively trying to friend my pseudonym profile, I get depressed. She doesn't even know the most depressed civil war soldier's name, and she wants to friend him. (In the civil war, a soldier was showing signs of melancholy. A doctor decided to call his condition depression. I use that soldier's name on a FB account.)

I see my pictures have been stolen, and I get depressed. I see my stolen pictures, with a new copyright, and I get depressed. I always deactivate my account when leaving FB. When FB, monkeys around with the deactivation process, I get depressed.

So FB does make me depressed some days. Maybe, it's just too much reality? Are we suspose to know exactly what almost everyone is doing, or not doing? What age has done? What lack of opportunities/money did to some peoples lives?

I don't hate FB, but think it needs some real competition. Right now, it's just too big. Its tentacles are integrated in too many websites. It's become its own internet? It's just to much posing, trout mouth, Kardashian, narcissism for some days. Today is that day for me.

I don't just start feeling down but I get angry at the BS on FB. I have a neighbor who always does the "my life is so great!" spin on FB, but living in the same street we see more of the reality than maybe some other people. I can't be on FB because it would mean calling people like her out on their BS, she is ugly (sorry but she just is by anyone's standards), her children are awful spoiled bitches, her constant posts about how sporty she is are lies and all she really does is spend money on sports shop brand names she can't afford. It's a true lifestyle spin that really makes me dislike her and worse ... I dislike myself for feeling like I should care and for not speaking up. So I try to avoid the negativity and BS (I learn about this person through my SO who reads it out to me sometimes). The problem with FB as I see it, is that it doesn't bring people closer together but pushes them apart because instead of being involved in some dialogue, face to face, you are left to silently judge and be judged.

But if your town has a "buy, sell, give away" group you should join, those are great.

Clicking on their profile and downgrading from 'friend' to 'acquaintance' I find helps a lot. You then hardly see their stuff. I've had to do that for four annoying people (far right politics, topless pics, fascist propaganda etc...) and I don't think I've seen any of them in my feed since.

Tbh, I haven't been on FB since I abandoned my account in about 2010 so I'm unaware of these new features like "aquaintance", I thought everyone had the same status of friend. I'm more worried about FB tracking and privacy, I have banned my SO from opening FB on my computer, not that does much on a shared IP.

It's not the internet, it's screens. Whether TV, computer, phone, tablet, or else, watching a screen regularly for an extended period of time has a significant effect on humans who are social animals.

There is enough of scientific data and studies over the last few decades on the tv screen to reach a scientific consensus but commercial interests and public relations have prevented this consensus from reaching the general public. we have less data for videogames and internet and smartphone but it's already shaping towards something similar.

And there is more than simply replacing actual human interactions by screens, for example most flat screens emit light frequencies in the blue range that have effects on the body and mind, impacting sleep and linked to macular degeneration.

Though that being said, facebook due to its format and content has a significant tendency in making people feel bad about themselves.

There's research showing that doing video conferencing with half body(to capture body language) and with custom tech that enables eye contact can increase trust. I wonder though why we arent advancing there, at the very least across the enterprise.